Northeast Nigeria at risk of famine, death – UN
December 16, 2016, 10:36 am

Nigerian and West African forces have managed to destroy several Boko Haram camps in Borno State in recent months [Xinhua]

Doctors in such northeastern states as Borno say they are seeing an overwhelming number of cases of malnutrition, especially among infants, amid the ongoing war between West African nations and the Islamist terrorist group Boko Haram.

Boko Haram has for years followed a scorched earth policy, reducing villages and towns to rubble thereby destroying the livelihood of millions from farm agriculture and the local economy.

The United Nations has also pointed to the large number of refugees leaving areas formerly held by Boko Haram.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said in late November that thousands of Nigerian refugees who have flocked to the Cameroonian borders in order to flee from Boko Haram refugees are in dire need for assistance.

“The team found refugees were living under tough conditions. Some are staying with destitute host families but most were sleeping in the open under trees, in makeshift shelters or on the dirt floors of dilapidated classrooms,” UNHCR spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters.

The latest figures by the UNHCR put the number of out of camp refugees in by the northernmost border of Cameroon at around 27,000.

Earlier in November, a UNHCR team visited previously inaccessible border areas of Far North Region, including Fotokol, Makary and Mogode districts. These areas were recently liberated by the Nigerian military and abandoned by Boko Haram.

Now, the UN’s Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has issued an alert that 75,000 children are at risk of famine and death in northeast Nigeria if immediate help does not reach them.

Aid agencies say they are unable to access many of these communities.

Boko Haram has been based in the northeastern state of Borno in Nigeria. But in recent years it has carried out cross-border incursions in neighboring Cameroon, Mali, and Niger with deadly effect.

Boko Haram, which now controls less areas of northeastern Nigeria than five years ago, has come under repeated attacks from the Nigerian, Chadian and Cameroonian armies in recent weeks.

Although African nations have launched a combined military effort, sanctioned by the African Union and supported in part by Washington, to destroy the militant group, and the extremist group has lost some territory, it has not lost its capability to launch suicide and car bomb attacks or kidnap women and children for leverage.

The conflict has displaced some 2.1 million people in northeastern Nigeria.

The BRICS Post with inputs from Agencies